5 Ways to Prepare Your Yard For Ticks This Spring
5 Ways to Prepare Your Yard For Ticks This Spring
After a long winter of shoveling, spring is finally here in New England. Along with flowers and rain showers, female adult deer ticks emerge to lay thousands of eggs that will hatch later this year. Once a a new female tick is born, they have a two-year life cycle ending after they lay thousands of eggs of their own. Combined with wildlife, the two-year life cycle explains why some experience ticks for the first time in a home they have lived in for years.
Controlling ticks with yard sprays that begin in the early spring is beneficial for the whole season. Tick yard sprays will kill ticks on contact and their eggs, thus reducing the population both this year and next year.
Here are 5 ways to prepare your yard for ticks this spring:
Schedule your first spray treatment as soon as the snow is gone and the ground is unfrozen. This will kill fall’s leftover deer ticks, along with adult American dog ticks and Lone Star ticks that will activate as temperatures begin to warm.
Remove leaf litter and brush from around the property once snow melts. This is the perfect home for ticks. After the clean-up, be sure to put your clothes in the dryer and run it on high for 10 minutes to kill ticks that were carried inside.
Treat all the areas in and around your property that you use, even paths and walkways. While deer ticks often stay in the brush perimeter of the property, other types of ticks may venture out further in the yard.
Control nymphal deer ticks that activate later in the spring around May. Tick treatments on the yard and the perimeter will control these tiny ticks, as they carry the Lyme disease bacteria and other tick-borne diseases.
Deter deer in early spring who come close to the home in search of food. These deer can carry ticks onto your property. Protecting your plants with a repellent or deer fencing will teach deer not to come onto your property in search of food.
We are starting spring tick spraying in Massachusetts and Connecticut the first week of April this season. Our recommendation to our clients and the community is to be aware of tick activity at this time too.
Happy Outdooring!